Ashes to Ashes
by open-notebook
Summary: Harry Potter: A very successful Auror, loyal friend, part-time teacher, and a big fan of Scandinavian Cuisine.


Ashes to Ashes

open-notebook

summary:

**Harry Potter:** A very successful Auror, loyal friend, part-time teacher, and a big fan of Scandinavian Cuisine.

**Annie Kirk:** An almost-average, gum chomping, second year Ravenclaw student with extraordinary powers.

**The Connection: **Jet black hair, a love for breaking rules, and thrown together by an evil plot that could destroy both of them.

**Disclaimer:**

I wish I owned Harry Potter. Actually I only wish I owned Tom Felton but I don't so there goes my dreams. Anyway, the lovely Joanne Rowling owns Harry and his world; I own Annie and the plot. Gee... I sound pretty insignificant don't I?

**Author's Notes:**

Thought of this pretty late last night. Or early this morning. Who knows my clock doesn't work because I'm too lazy to reset it after power outages. Tee hee.

Anyway, onto...

Ashes to Ashes 

Chapter One: A Vision and a Dream

"That is the last time I _ever_ baby sit your kids, Ron."

Ron Weasley laughed and ruffled a small child's hair as he ran past. "I told you they were a handful, Harry."

"Yes but you forgot to mention Lyric and Melody are impossible to tell apart now, Nate prefers the kitchen floor to the toilet, and Joey can't eat lunch without spitting half of it back up."

Ron put on a very 'guilt myself out of trouble' voice and said, "But they just love their uncle Harry..."

Harry laughed. "Shut it. Get Uncle Fred or Uncle George to baby sit next time."

Ron rolled his eyes. "I can't trust them with all the crap they sell in Diagon Alley now."

"What about Auntie Ginny?"

Ron was about to reply when Hermione's voice rang out from the kitchen.

"NATHAN SAMUEL WEASLEY THE FLOOR IS FOR WALKING ON NOT POTTYING ON!"

Ron got up from the couch, stuffed the rest of his cookie into his mouth and headed towards the kitchen.

"Something wrong, 'Mione?" he said through a mouthful of cookie.

"No, your son just peed on the floor and now everything's just peachy isn't it. OF COURSE SOMETHING'S WRONG YOU IMBECILE!"

"'Mione, we've been home 5 minutes, just take a breath, ok?"

Harry laughed to himself and took another sip of his firewhisky. (Ron always kept a significant supply of the stuff in the house. Hidden from Hermione of course.) Ron and Hermione's children were sweet, even if they were a royal pain in the behind. Lyric and Melody were the oldest at six, and looked to have Hermione's build and her mother's eyes. Next came Nate at 2, who looked a lot like Fred and George (and would probably end up acting like them too). And last was Joey, who didn't look like anyone yet, although he did show signs of the dominant Weasley family trait each of the children possessed: flaming red hair. (Hermione was very happy about this, as she pitied the child who inherited her hair.)

He wondered how they'd made it so long, 6 years married and they were still bickering and arguing like they'd done in school. Hermione was her usual, nitpicky self. She'd gotten her hair permanently de-frizzed and straightened and was obsessing over losing 4 extra pounds she'd gained after Joey's birth. Ron was Ron, keeping his certain trait of disregarding the rules and being a very loyal friend.

Figuring he should do his part to be a loyal friend, Harry got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen to find his best friends at each other again. Joey was crying in Hermione's arms and Harry took him and rocked him slowly.

"Hey," he said loudly over Hermione. "Shush, will you, you're scaring the kids."

Ron and Hermione calmed down and Joey had quieted, so Hermione took him back.

"So they were OK for you?" Hermione said, slowly rocking Joey back and forth.

"Yeah," Harry lied. "They-" but he was interrupted by a pop in the fireplace.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked and either Lyric or Melody squealed "UNCLE MOONY!" Harry decided it was Melody, because her hair was shorter on one side, the result of a bad encounter with daddy's wand.

"Harry," Lupin said loudly, grinning at him. "Dobby told me you'd be here."

Harry rolled his eyes. He'd recently adopted the house elf, and it had all gone downhill from there, so to speak.

"Hi, what's up?" Harry said, squatting down in front of the fire. Hermione and Ron waved from the background.

"Listen, I just got an owl from the Ministry, they've got a new lead."

Harry snorted. The last lead the Ministry had come up with was a giant strawberry lollipop attacking random people in Singapore.

They'd all seen how that had worked out.

"Anyway," Lupin continued. "I'm in the middle of a lesson, so could you cover for me?"

Harry nodded. "Sure. Just let me get my robes and I'll be right there."

Harry had agreed to help Lupin teach Defense Against the Dark Arts a few months ago. They both worked at the Ministry, Harry as an Auror and Lupin as the head of the newly founded Werewolf Rights department. But at the special request of Dumbledore, Lupin to DADA with Harry's occasional aid.

"I'll see you guys later," Harry said, pulling on his robes and taking a handful of Floo Powder from above the stone fireplace. He threw it in and as the emerald flames shot up he called out "Hogwarts" and went spiraling off.

Harry reappeared moments later in the office he shared with Lupin. He smoothed his robes and straightened his glasses then walked into the classroom.

It was second-year, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw today and Lupin was standing at the front of the classroom, talking and casually leaning against a desk.

"Hi, Harry," he said as Harry walked in. "We're doing Hinkypunks today. I'm having them read a paragraph out loud from the book then I'm explaining it because nobody listens to the book anyway."

There were a few snorts from the front of the classroom. "We're right here," he said, pointing to a paragraph midway down the page and ruffled his already-gray hair. "Take it away, Professor Potter." And with that he threw a small amount of powder into the fire and spiraled off.

Harry rubbed his hands together. "Well a good afternoon to you all."

There were a few mumbles.

Harry cleared his throat. "I said good afternoon."

"Good afternoon, Professor Potter," came the monotonous, half-hearted reply. Harry tutted.

"We'll have to work on that. Now, can anyone tell me exactly what a Hinkypunk looks like?" He looked down at the seating chart Lupin had given him. "Miss Kirk, perhaps?"

A dark-haired Ravenclaw who was whispering animatedly to the girl beside her looked up.

"Huh?"

"Thought so, Miss Kirk. Annie, is it?"

Annie nodded, her cheeks getting hot.

"Now, after you throw out your gum you can tell me what a Hinkypunk looks like."

Annie rolled her eyes towards her friend and used a banishing charm on her gum.

"Now, a Hinkypunk, Annie."

"Right. Erm, a Hinkypunk is a one legged creature that appears to be made of wisps of smoke. It hides in bogs and waits for lost travelers and then lights a lantern and leads the traveler into a ditch or something like that."

"Much to the amusement of the Hinkypunk, I might add. Very good, Miss Kirk."

Harry looked at his watch, then up to the board where Remus had written the week's homework. "Okay, read the next ten pages in your textbook, then begin your homework. Due next week."

It wasn't five minutes before the bell rang and the class filed out, talking amongst themselves. Harry followed them out and went towards the staff room. He passed Peeves painting an invisible cabinet and gave him a good kick, then moved on.

He entered the staff room and although it had gotten a repainting, it was very much the same as when Harry had been in school. Tiny Professor Flitwick was talking energetically to Professor Sprout, while Dumbledore and McGonagall were isolated in a corner looking very grim indeed. Deciding not to butt in on a clearly private conversation, Harry conjured up a steaming mug of coffee and sat at the other end of the table.

The Ministry of Magic was falling apart at the seams. Although Cornelius Fudge had been removed from the Minister of Magic position, the new one wasn't much better. Dumbledore had refused the position once gain and Sean Madison had been elected. Madison had good intentions, but they never played out quite right. Azkaban had been destroyed, allowing all of the Death Eaters to escape, and the troll negotiations had not gone over too well. It had taken Hagrid almost a month to recover. The Order was doing everything they could, but for every member of the Order there were four Death Eaters.

The Muggles had noticed something odd as well. There was more death from unexplainable causes. It was everywhere, and the muggles weren't dumb enough not to recognize it.

_It's more information, that's all we need is more infor-_ Harry's thoughts were cut off by the staff room door banging open and raised yelling that could have echoed throughout the school.

Harry looked up and found Severus Snape and Sybil Trelawny at each other tooth and claw. Before they could continue, Dumbledore had broken out from his conversation with McGonagall and held up a hand to silence them.

"Severus! Sybil! Please quiet yourselves, you'll scare the students." Harry looked up at Dumbledore and found the usual cheery glimmer in his eye gone.

"Albus-" Trelawny interrupted but Dumbledore again silenced her.

"Sybil, please calm down."

Sybil Trelawny did not look her best. Her bug-eyed glasses sat askew on her nose, her numerous beads and bangles were twisted every which way. Her hair was frizzed and sticking out, and her face was pale and sickly.

Harry vanished his coffee cup and stood next to Dumbledore, eager to see what the issue was. Ever since Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts, Trelawny had allowed herself out of her tower more often, and now it was common to see her walking down the hallway conversing with a student. This would have been a rare sight to see in Harry's years at Hogwarts.

"What's going on?" Harry asked.

Snape glared at Harry. "Nothing that concerns you."

Sybil scoffed. "Yes it does. If you had paid attention to me you'd know, you ignorant -"

Dumbledore stepped in again. "Please, Sybil tell us what's going on."

Trelawny began again.

"Without the name calling," he added as an afterthought.

"I was talking to Severus in the hallway, reading his palm,"

"An act I did not wish you to perform," Snape said in his usual drawl, glaring at Sybil.

"And," Sybil continued as thought Snape had never spoken. "I slipped into a trance. I've got student witnesses, as well as Severus. And I remember exactly what I saw."

"And what did you see, may I ask?"

"I still haven't made sense of it, but the first thing I saw was a green apple sitting on a table. It was surrounded by fog, so I couldn't see exactly where it was. It sat there alone for a while, then a small hand with long spindly fingers and French Manicured nails reached out and took it."

Dumbledore nodded and urged her to continue.

"The next thing I saw was a dull looking tapestry being thrown into a fire. And then-"

Sybil choked on her words, as though it were too painful to say it.

"Yes," Dumbledore prompted.

"There were only two more parts to my vision, and they came to me in words, not images."

Dumbledore looked anxious, it was a common fact in Divination that visions like those of Sybil Trelawny's most recent rarely contained actual words.

Sybil gave a deep sigh. "There were five words and one phrase. The words were BLACK, HOGWARTS, LESTRANGE, ANGEL, and WEREWOLF."

"And the phrase," Dumbledore said, clearly trying to remain calm.

"It's not what it seems."

Hours later, Harry lay in his bed in a small flat in downtown London, noticing he'd never quite examined the ceiling so closely before. It took a long while before he finally fell asleep.

_A stone classroom, the dungeons, he decided, judging by the colder temperatures. It must have been winter. There were three figures in the otherwise deserted room. Although their backs were to him, he could somewhat make out their shapes. Two were tall, one had a broad build and the other looked skinny and strong. The third figure was smaller, coming only to the other's chests. They all wore long, dark robes that made the unrecognizable. The two taller figures stood on either side of the smaller one. They both had their wands out, pointed at their minor's head. One muttered something and Harry's heart raced, but a fire only sprung up in the center of the room. The figure in the center trembled as the other figure shoved a tapestry into the figure's wavering hands. It pointed to the fire and the figure screamed and it's hood fell down, revealing long, spiraling, jet-black hair. One of the figures pushed her nearer to the fire and she threw the tapestry in,. The other figures stood and watched it burn, while the girl sat on the ground with her head in her knees, silently sobbing. As the other two left the room, they ripped the back of the girl's robes, revealing a pair of crumpled black wings..._

Harry woke drenched in a cold sweat.


End file.
